Halloween Night

September 24, 2001

In this hair-raising tour of a mansion and cornfield, readers confront creatures of the night. Druce (Witch, Witch Come to My Party) generates suspense with rhyming questions that are answered with a trembling turn of the page. A diaphanous form lurks behind a broken window ("Who can walk through closed doors/ with a thud and a thump?/ 'I can,' said the ghost"), bats swoop and a skeleton emerges from a crypt. Wenzel's (The Christmas Path) naturalistic watercolors and tilted fields of vision enhance the unsettling ambience. Ages 4-8.

September 1, 2001
K-Gr 2-Riddles introduce the characters associated with Halloween, including a witch ("On Halloween Night/when it's dark and scary/who can swoop through the air/with a swish and a flurry?") and a jack-o'-lantern ("On a darkened porch/when the moon is low/who can light a smile/with a shine and a glow?"). Watercolor illustrations of haunted houses, graveyards, ghosts, and trick-or-treating children establish an appropriately spooky mood; however, the occasionally awk- ward rhymes can make reading aloud difficult.-Shara Alpern, The Free Library of Philadelphia

Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2001
Ages 3-5. The premise is slight (trick-or-treaters embark on a night of mischief and see spooky sights along the way), but there's still plenty of fun to be had in this guessing game written in rhyme. Each spread, decorated with whimsical illustrations that set a light tone, asks a question that is answered on the following page: "Who can swoop through the air with a swish and a flurry?" "Who can light a smile with a shine and a glow?" The cadence of the rhymes is occasionally jerky, but that won't matter in the least. Sharp-eyed children will find clues in the pictures and won't be able to contain themselves without gleefully shouting out the answer. That's the joy of the book. The illustrations, appropriately dark and rendered from varied perspectives, are well suited to the lively narrative and are sure to please.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)